Shortly after
notching her personal best and a 4A record in the pole vault at her region
meet, Gracie Otto—who also did cross country and swimming—said she had achieved
her greatest athletic accomplishment.Little did Otto
know, she would top that feat two weeks later.Otto, a recent
graduate from Hillcrest High, won the state pole vaulting event at the 4A track
and field championships breaking her previous record of 10-feet 1 ¼-inches by
reaching 10-feet 3- inches.“I was super
excited and almost shocked actually cause I think it was on my third attempt,”
Otto said. “So after I got over the bar it was quite amazing, and I felt the
same joy as I did (at region).”While the
picture-perfect weather on the day helped (no wind), Otto said the key was the
pole she ended up using.After using one
or two different pole sizes throughout the entire season, Otto and her coaches
decided to use a longer and heavier pole at region. They went even higher at state
using a pole that was six inches longer and five pounds heavier.“You get better
and more forceful at what’s called blowing through a pole,” said Scott Stucki,
track and field coach. “So you’re bending it so much that you don’t get the
same kind of spring out of it. The way to combat that is to move up a size.”After many
conversations between vaults, Otto said it was nerve-racking but her coaches
told her to focus on the technique and the pole would do it for her.“I was nervous ‘cause I used a pole I had never used before
and it ended up working in my favor so that was great,” Otto said. “It was
really nice to end the season like that.”Otto wasn’t the
only Husky to reach the podium as juniors Tara Sharp and Olivia Finlayson
finished third and fourth respectively.“[Gracie and
Tara] both had a couple chances (at the record) before Gracie got it. It was a
lot of fun watching those girls do that,” Stucki said.Though she was a
distance runner when she started high school, Otto had seen pole vaulting in
the Olympics and wanted to do it in high school. But prior to her arrival,
girls used to compete with the boys before it became its own scoring event a
few years ago.Stucki was
instrumental in making it a scoring event. With Otto asking to compete and a
pole vaulting coach from another school suggesting a girls’ event be created
separate from the boys, Stucki spearheaded the effort that made it happen.“I just begged
my coach, and I said I really wanted to try pole vaulting, and I thought it
looked really cool…. I was really happy he was able to get that,” Otto said.With both Otto
and Sharp coming from gymnastics backgrounds, Stucki said it makes them so
proficient at the sport.“Going upside
down and the acrobatics of finishing off the vault at the top of the pole and getting
over the bar just doesn’t faze them ‘cause they’re used to flipping around in
the air,” he said. “They have the upper body strength to do it.”The gymnastics
is part of the pole vaulter’s training. Otto said they use rings and bars to
help with their technique.A state champion
who stood alone atop the podium, it was those around her, Otto said, that
helped her reach those heights.“I don’t think I
would’ve gotten this far without the support of my coaches and of my
teammates,” she said.Otto would later
add winning state “was great to do it with some of my best friends and
teammates there competing with me and supporting me.”Otto intends to
continue her body launching ways. While she will attend the University of Utah
in the fall, she plans to transfer to the University of Hawaii to study marine
biology and join the pole vaulters on their track team.